Murals get ready to come home

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An artist's rendering of how the American Oak Leather mural would look on the second floor of the Duke Energy Convention Center. / Provided

Help solve the mystery

Know who’s who on the industrial murals at the Cincinnati/Northern Kentucky International Airport and the Cincinnati Museum Center at Union Terminal? Have stories to tell about the workers depicted and the murals? Have photos or documents? The Enquirer seeks all of the above. Go to Cincinnati.com/murals and click on the photos to submit information. Or send to: Cliff Radel. Phone: 513-768-8301 Email:cradel@enquirer.comMail: 312 Elm St., Cincinnati, 45202 The Enquirer will report back as each mystery is solved.

Tax-free donations to save the nine endangered industrial mosaic murals at the Cincinnati/Northern Kentucky International Airport can be sent to:

Little by little the nine old Union Terminal mosaic murals are moving back to the Queen City.

Officials indicated during Friday’s City Hall meeting of Mayor Mark Mallory’s Save the Murals Committee that they plan to move cautiously and expediently raising funds, calling in conservationists to evaluate the 80-year-old works of art and moving the eight-ton murals from the Cincinnati/Northern Kentucky International Airport to their new home, the Duke Energy Convention Center.

Along the way, they plan to put on a parade welcoming the murals back home.

The estimated cost of the move: $5 million to $7 million. The murals – located in two closed terminals – must leave the airport by 2015 because of planned construction.

Amount raised so far: $7,226. That’s one-tenth of one percent of the money needed. Ninety-nine point nine percent to go.

The Cincinnati Preservation Association started accepting donations for the move after The Enquirer launched a series of articles April 28 to save these 20-feet by 20-feet works of tinted mortar and colored glass as well as discover who are the men in the murals.

The images of the men depicted in the murals were crafted from source photos taken in 1931 at area plants. Union Terminal opened in 1933. So, the workers on the industrial murals have labored in anonymity for 80 years.

Joel Koopman, the city’s facilities manger, reported that he has contacted mural conservationists. He plans to bring in two firms to evaluate the murals’ condition and make sure they are roadworthy. The trip from the airport to the convention center would take an estimated four hours.

The murals are old and fragile and only eight inches thick. Koopman wants to make sure they survive the move.

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“The field of handling such works has changed quite a bit from when they were first moved from Union Terminal in 1973,” Koopman said. Back then, they were carefully boxed up, put on flat-bed trucks and slowly driven to the airport. “Today,” he said, “it’s a science.”

Matt Deaton and Mike Scott, the convention center’s operations director and chief engineer, respectively, used artist renderings to show what the murals would look like scattered about the facility and placed next to escalators, windows and walls.

“Getting them into the convention center won’t be a problem,” noted Mark McKillip, the architect who oversaw the building’s most recent expansion.

“All you would have to do is cut out a wall,” he said. “That’s just removing drywall, studs and drywall screws.”

There’s one drawback to the lineup idea. The inside walls are prime space for exhibitors. They could be demonstrating spray paint or power washers next to a work of art. The building is, after all, a convention center, not an art museum.

That prompted Betsky to suggest that after the art museum’s next expansion “we’d be happy to host the murals.”

Get in line, pal. The convention center is plan A.

Dr. O’dell Owens, Cincinnati State president, then asked: “Is there a plan B?”

The concourse, which stood 36.5 feet tall, 450 feet long and 80 feet wide, was wrecked in 1974 to accommodate piggyback freight train cars. The concourse cost $1 million to build in 1933. That’s $20 million in today’s money.

“If we could find $20 million in the capitol budget,” the mayor said, knowing full well the Queen City is Tap City when it comes to finding spare change, much less $20 million, in the budget, “I would rebuild it in a heartbeat.”

Failing that, he intends to raise the $7 million to bring the murals back to Cincinnati.

“The day they come back over the Roebling Bridge,” he said, “we’re going to throw a party and have a parade. They’re going to go past the National Underground Railroad Freedom Center and The Banks.

“Lots of people will be watching. We’ll have bands. Moving the murals will be a big deal.”